The Rev. Bobby Turner of Columbus, Ohio, places his hand on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak on the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.

WASHINGTON – Next week, the nation’s first black president, a living symbol of the racial progress Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed about, will stand near the spot where King stood 50 years ago and say where he believes this nation should be headed.

Then, like King, President Barack Obama will step away from the hulking Lincoln Memorial and return to where this nation is now.

As civil rights activists pause to consider the great strides toward equality that the 1963 March on Washington helped to spur, they also look at the current political and racial landscape and wonder: How much of that progress is now being undone? More here.

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